The new TV series "Salem" is
not, alas, a true-life tale set in Oregon's capital city. Instead, it's the first-ever original scripted
series for WGN, the Chicago-based cable station that for years has been best known
for airing Chicago sports team games, "Law & Order" reruns, and old movies.

While the Cubs games and
reruns aren't going anywhere, WGN now wants to be called "WGN America." And the
channel is following in the footsteps of other content providers in realizing
original programming is what you need to get people excited about your brand.

Now that I've stalled as long
as I can, let's return, reluctantly, to "Salem." Supposedly inspired by the
notorious witch trials and hysteria that took hold of colonial Massachusetts in
the late seventeenth century, the new series isn't just bad. Its entire premise
is offensively stupid.

The trials are now seen as a
tragedy that grew out of a nasty mix of hysteria, paranoia, misplaced religious
fundamentalism, and sexism.

But as the pilot of "Salem"
would have it, there really were witches in Salem. This point of view drew a
skeptical reaction – to put it mildly – at the Television Critics Association
winter press tour in January.

"Our take on the Salem Witch
Trials is that witches were real and they were running the trials, and that's
what you didn't know, and that's what this show is about," as Brannon Braga, a
co-creator and writer of "Salem," told reporters.

"It is an alternate history,"
Braga added, when a reporter mentioned that the real witch trials were also
seen as an attack on women.

So witches were behind a systematic attack on witches? Women were pulling the strings on a crazed campaign that targeted women? That's not alternate history, it's just lazy, high-concept nonsense.

The absurdity of the idea might be less
irritating if the show wasn't such a toxic brew, blending sex, horror and bad
acting. Janet Montgomery ("Made in Jersey") is tolerable as Mary Sibley, a woman
who marries a powerful older man, but has a history with Shane West's John
Alden. But West ("Nikita"), in a long brown wig, is so anachronistic he might as well be doing a "Saturday Night Live" sketch.

Seth Gabel ("Fringe") is Cotton Mather, who may
not be the Puritan paragon the community thinks he is. Ashley Madekwe ("Revenge") is Tituba, who has
a witchy bond with Mary.

They all look like they've made a deal with
the Devil. Or at least need to have a serious talk with their agents.

Maybe by some kind of black magic, "Salem" will
improve. But based on the first episode, that would take state-of-the-art
spellcasting.